


By Tomorrow, We’ll Be All Right

by firewoodwander



Series: Hold Your Heart [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Past Character Death, Pre-Slash, References to alpha/beta/omega dynamics, mentions of an unborn child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28132353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewoodwander/pseuds/firewoodwander
Summary: Before Fives could do anything to stop him Echo was running, gunning for the shuttle, crouched behind his shield and returning fire as best he could.All Fives could do was cover him and watch the scene play out from too far,far too far,and scream.
Relationships: CT-21-0408 | Echo/CT-27-5555 | Fives (Past), CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives & CT-5385 | Tup, CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives/CT-5385 | Tup
Series: Hold Your Heart [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017046
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	By Tomorrow, We’ll Be All Right

**Author's Note:**

> [Tones & I - Can't be Happy All the Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEG7GXnl2FE)

It happened too quickly. All of it, no matter how he’d seen it coming, had felt like it had happened in the blink of an eye. So fast, in fact, that in his dreams, his nightmares thereafter, it feels like everyone’s moving through water.

Sound warps and muffles as Echo steps away from him. He can’t move quickly enough, can’t reach for him, the tips of his fingers not even brushing his shell before he slips away. 

Two steps out and Fives thinks he shreds his throat with the force of his shout. 

Echo’s shield is battered and blasted, and every inch closer to the ship is a vibroblade straight to Fives’ heart. There’s light, a heavy, watery sound, more screaming—Fives doesn’t know if it isn’t his own.

The bunk room is oppressive with the darkness that voids it. It takes a few moments for the usual shuffling and breathing of all his brothers to fade into focus above the wild thrashing of his heartbeat, above the roaring torrent of blood in his ears and the gasps that tear at his lungs. His thin blanket is tangled around his legs. The sheets are damp with sweat. There’s a body sat up on the next bunk over, a black shadow in the gloom.

Fives takes one long inhale, holds it. Lifts a hand to drag over his face. Exhales as loudly as he dares. Covers his burning eyes with a cool palm before shoving it through his already-messy hair.

After… _After,_ Fives hadn’t even had to move bunks to avoid the pain. Echo and he had spent so little time apart, especially after ARC training, that Rex had eventually sighed and rolled his eyes and assigned the spare bed to another trooper, much to their pathetic squawks of indignation. But now it feels like Fives has nothing left of his husband-to-be. Nothing.

Nothing, that is, except a crumpled image of possibly the most painful reminder of his loss. 

Fives slides a hand beneath his pillow just to feel it’s edges. Softened by wear, the flimsi crinkles its familiar tune between his fingers. The black may fade and the white may bleed, but Fives knows he’ll forever have that beloved image of Echo’s expression when he first saw them seared into his memory.

_Ad’ika._

“Fives,” comes a murmur just a little to his right. Fives gasps another breath and tries to ignore the stinging-smarting of his eyes.

“Yeah?” he tries to say, but it comes out strangled and weak. Tup slides to the floor between their bunks and kneels by Fives’ head. His hand rests tentatively on the edge of the mattress; Fives leaves the scan hidden where it is and moves his hand down to hold the poor kid’s fingers in reassurance.

“’M fine,” he lies. Tries to smile. “Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re not,” Tup says gently. “But that’s okay. You have us.”

 _And it’s not enough,_ some horrible, uncharitable part of him wants to retort. _You’re not him._

No, Tup isn’t Echo. But Tup is kind, Tup is young, and Tup cares about him just as much as Rex and Jesse do. Tup is here, and Echo isn’t, and he never will be again. So Fives will be selfish, Fives will cry and scream and mourn, but he won’t let his vod’ika hurt while he does. Not when he’s here, trying so hard to project a scent that’s calm and safe and soothing, just for him.

“I’m okay,” he says again, squeezing that rough soldier’s hand beneath his. “I have you here looking after me, don’t I?”

Even in the dimness he can see the way Tup smiles, could swear it lights up the space around them—just a little. Echo’s smiles, no matter how small or sardonic, had always been able to clear the gloom around him like he himself was a ray of sunshine. 

He was Fives’ sunshine, the lighthouse in the storm. Sometimes it feels as if he sent Tup to him after his death just to make sure Fives didn’t dash himself upon the rocks in the end anyway.

“Would you…” Tup trails off. Fives waits for him, waits for his pretty, sad eyes to wander back to meet his own again. “I heard some others saying it gets—easier, somehow, if you have someone to, y’know, be there. I could… I mean, if you want…”

Fives blinks away the last of his tears and manages another smile, more convincing than the last. He scoots back a little, letting go of Tup’s hand to hold his arms open in invitation.

“Only if you want to,” he says. “We all need someone, sometimes.”

Someone to hold, to break down on and to piece together and to love. 

Tup bites his lip and scrambles up into the bunk, his plaited hair sliding over his shoulder to flop down his back as he settles. Fives traces his hairline gently, pulls the plait to settle over Tup’s sharp, too-proud collar, and then tucks his hand neatly around his back between his side and the mattress. He wonders, early graduate the kid may be, how many fingers he hadn’t used to be able to fit in the divots between his ribs.

“You donating rations or something?” he mumbles into Tup’s hair. Tup’s shoulders curl up where he’s tucked himself into Fives’ chest, his nose hovering just on the verge of too close to Fives’ scent gland. Not that Fives actually minds, no… He pulls Tup closer, feels the urge to be his safety. An anchor.

“No,” Tup replies, sounding somewhat petulant. “But sometimes Tirra gets hungry, and it hurts.”

“Tirra can go and beg the kitchen staff for extras.”

Tup makes a tiny noise. “She never wants to bother anyone.”

Fives sighs. “Next time you come find me, okay? You need to keep your strength up too.”

Tup’s arms, wound sinuously around Fives’ waist so much like and unlike Echo’s embrace all at once, tighten as if he’s afraid to let go.

“Thank you,” he whispers. Fives squeezes him back and uses his free arm to stroke a thumb over his cheek.

“Don’t sweat it, sweetheart. What would he say if I let a cute thing like you waste away before our very eyes?”

Fives falls back to sleep, a dreamless sleep, with the shape of a smile on Tup’s soft lips pressed to his shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me here on [tumblr!](https://firewoodwander.tumblr.com/)


End file.
